Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/40

Rh resolved on a Sabbath day's travel in order to get hardened to our work. We rode about twelve miles up the valley between mountains of the most imposing grandeur. One peak crowned with perpetual snow is of striking beauty. Another has a cubical summit. A third, at no great distance, is pyramidal; and so on, in every conceivable variety. On the other side of the valley, we see Castle mountain, the resemblance of its features to cyclopean masonry doubtless suggesting the name. Night comes and we are soon wrapped in our blankets.

Next morning we are in the saddle again, when the sun is peering over Castle mountain. The ride is partly through burnt woods along the side of the river, and the smoke conceals to a large extent the outline of the mountains. Our party gets divided, one of the number taking a wrong trail narrowly escaped losing himself, at least for the night. At the end of the day, we ascend a glacier-fed stream and thus reach the summit, 5300 feet above the sea. Tonight we fall asleep on the continental "Divide." Hitherto we have passed over ground draining to the east. Tomorrow we follow a stream flowing into the waters of the Pacific ocean.

The descent from the summit, which has since received the name of Laggan, was by the Kicking-Horse valley, flanked by great mountains. It occupied four days to the upper part of the Columbia river, and proved to be a most toilsome journey. As is frequently the case in mountaineering, a dash of peril was occasionally encountered. The Kicking-Horse river, which has its source in a small summit lake near Laggan, soon gathers strength from many glacier sources, and flows with tremendous impetuosity, especially for the first six miles. The last ten miles passes through canyons, where the descent is most rapid, and the water, now of great volume, rushes downwards with